patrick.net

I went to Ohio State for my undergrad. Yes, I do think California is great. Spend four years in Columbus, Ohio and then tell me otherwise.

Who is John Galt? ~ Atlas Shrugged?

I do love California. I can't think of any other place to call home. I've lived on both coasts and 2 other countries. It is funny to hear a New England guy talking about powerful families and snotty rich kids throwing the family name around for special treatement. I can't imagine an area more known for the aristocratic families than New England. California is known more for new wealth creation, and celebrities are but a small fraction of the population.

Hi There HiThere,

That Ben Stein article is probably one of the worst ones he's written yet. A bunch of lame anecdotes, and the point being what? He has some shallow friends?

DId you also notice that contrary to what he's said previously, he thinks "It doesn’t look to me as if there will be a recession - at least not a major recession" as opposed to vehemently saying how the subprime crisis affects only a miniscule part of the economy. So, now it will only be a "minor" recession? It's just a flesh wound!

The only guys at SDSU who acted like that were out of state students. A huge percentage of California students pretty much worked and put themselves through school. California is the envy of the rest of the country for accessibility to affordable colleges and universities. You can get started for something like $13 a unit here in San Diego.

Astrid,

Gorgeous photos. I love the wildflowers, churches and horse photos. Did you know Icelandic horses have a fifth gate?

As to the two types of people, I have noticed that my less happy friends are far larger consumers than my happy friends. I literally had one friend say to me, about two years ago before buying a house that is financially strangling her right now, 'I'll be happy when I have a single family home.' Not single family house, single family home.

I think that unhappy people often try to fill themselves with things, food, stuff, obviously expensive houses, cars, etc. It's almost as though they are trying to feed something inside themselves to fend off unhappiness or malaise. It's just what I've observed among people I know. If you can't be happy, at least look successful financially, which in their minds seems to equal happiness.

I am still in the places I bought in '94. I'm like a barnacle, I'd need to be pried out of my places. I'm happy. Could we afford bigger, showier places? Yeah, our incomes gone up a lot. Do we need bigger, showier? Would we be happier people in bigger, more prestigious? No. We're happy, we have enough space, love our neighbors and neighborhood. I don't feel the need to be envied by people I barely know.

California is the envy of the rest of the country for accessibility to affordable colleges and universities.

is --> was

Either that, or remove accessibility and/or affordable and/or envy...

UCs are getting more and more overcrowded, the Cal State system is woefully underpaying faculty, tuition/fees are going up, and it's getting harder to get into these schools. It's what happens when you neglect the system for too long.

@SFWoman,

If only more people had your mindset - we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

While I agree with the need to continuously improve and upgrade, the symptoms you are describing are because so many people want to go to the schools here.

As for underpaying the faculty, I was in the system off and on for 2 decades, and I can't recall anytime that the unions were claiming the faculty were overpaid.

skibum,

If more people had my mindset there would never be houses availible for resale- there needs to be a happy middle!

"die Hausfrauen"

Exactly my point. Your best clients don't give a RIP about you personally! All they need to know is "what can you bring to the table"! The climbers are too insecure of themselves and spend more time and effort figuring who they should be seen with than anything of real substance.

If more people had my mindset there would never be houses availible for resale- there needs to be a happy middle!

Not necessarily true - people would still move for all the "usual" reasons - getting married/divorced, having children, retiring, job relocation. Just no flipping and no continual tradeups.

The best part of that scenario would be a huge cutback in RE commissions. :)

Good pictures. I'm going to frame some and tell people that I took them in Norway.

How come techies take fantastic pictures? I can never take good pictures of the nature. The only good ones I have a talent for are semi-nudes in an artistic setup.

Another problem with the California ideal of constantly trading up is the instability of neighborhood networks. Where I grew up, if a strange car was parked on the block for more than 15 minutes people started talking. Here in California there could be a panel van parked all day in front of one of my neighbors as they removed the bodies and I would just figure it was someone new moving in.

Now that is very true. Hey, it sure makes it easy for the FBI to do a stakeout though.

There are also some crazy living arrangements. You will see extension cords going out to RVs from homes. I think people literally buy power from people who live in a house.

Better than Port-au-Prince. There everyone just hires a make-shift electrician to tap into the overhead power lines and run bare copper wire through your window and into your house. (Watch where you walk!) Odd, you never seem to meet an old Hatian make-shift electrician...

I had an electrician come to my place once to replace a simple light fixture. He was covered on both arms with electrical burns of various ages. I was a little worried about his work so I had an electrician from a different company come in right after to look at the fixture and make sure it had been installed properly.

HiThere,i was on the losing end of that family situation- once. It used to bother me. Not anymore. Women should take up the opportunity and "trade up" if they can. Beauty does have its privileges. Why should a woman wait for things to get better when they can find a "better situation"? And now that her current "love interest" is a near failed mortgage guy, I relish in the Schadenfreude. I calmly relay to her that the blood bath in Miami will only last 5-10 years. And that the upscale condo she is in virtual bankruptcy and that it may be converted to low-income housing. Beautiful women were used and abused by the housing industry on the way up. Doesnt every stripper have a realtors license? Interesting to see the fallout at Scores and Solid Gold on the way down.

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/366681.html

"Many real estate agents estimate that about 40 percent of the 10,000 single-family houses for sale in Sacramento County are empty. "

Yeah, rents are going up... and they aren't making any more land either.

Yet another loser who can't get laid.

Isn't that "looser"?

JG, I didn't mean you. BTW, it's "loser" not "looser." I've seen too many typos from otherwise university-schooled people.

"Looser" is an injoke from iamfacingforeclosure.com back when Casey used to post there. He spelled loser that way depsite repeated corrections.

"Just no flipping and no continual tradeups"

If we could get back to that I'd be a happy camper. Oh and no more "I may play a mild mannered employee at my day job but after work I'm ALL RE speculation baby" co-workers! Just STFU and carry your damn share of the work load you putz!

(Actually it'll probably take several years work through the "I was rounding 3rd. base and headed for home when the STUPID mortgage companies stopped loaning money!" specuflipper crowd) I think we'll all be surprised at just how much recruiting there'll be for the "REIC Anon." commiserating club.

From Ben's Blog:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sun_lasvegas0909sep09,0,1389227,full.story

"Almost half of the 30,000 homes listed for sale in the Las Vegas metropolitan area stand vacant, said Nason [Frank Nason, president of Las Vegas real estate firm Residential Resources], making it that much tougher to sell the rest."

Beyond throwing fuel on the "Rents are going up! Buy now!" crash and burn, aren't these REaltors worried about visits from the NAR Hit Squad for telling the truth?

@GallopingCheetah:
If you missed Casey Serin at the height of his glory, you truly missed out on one of the bubble's greatest events.

@sfbubblebuyer
Thanks Bro! I was trying to remember who started that, I could not remember if it was Casey or HaHa! Or maybe some other "looser"...

JG,

Tell me more about it. I did miss a lot. I was doing other fun things. What happened to Casey? What about his wife? I had a few seconds of tempting thoughts about her.

I briefly flirted with Ayn Rand's crazy shit and finally came to the conclusion that her stuff sucks. What's your take on that?

I once tried to get Casey to sell his extra organs to raise money. I guess he just was not desperate enough...

He could've pimped his wife ......

J Galt,

Thanks for the SacBee link! I feel for people like Susan McDonald. Here's a nice gal that just wanted a nice house in a nice neighborhood and look where the "boom" got HER!? Increase in home values? Forget it. It's damage control time.

I'm sure she and the rest of her neighbors are real grateful to the all BA specuvestors for perma-f'ing her town! Thanks guys! Thanks for bidding up prices and taxes then bolting like little kids breaking a window with a baseball! Thanks.

GC,

I've always found the Fountainhead derivative of Arrowsmith (Sinclair Lewis, not the band).

-the all

+all the

?

:(

There is a great deal that Ayn espoused that I do not agree with, however the Book Atlas Shrugged had a central tenet that we should not be penalized or looked down upon just because we choose to work harder than the average person. The argument is every bit as relevant today as it was in Ayn's day.

SWF, you got me. I have not read Arrowsmith.

Thanks for the "jingle mail"!

Thanks for the mosquitoes in your now abandoned pools!

I mean, what can this person do? Really?

JG,

To each's own. As I said, I used to flirt with her ideas for like a year or so, coincidentally, when my PM stocks were down (hard).

GC,
After Ayn stopped writing fiction, she really went off the deep end. Everything has to be taken in moderation and in it's appropriate context. I mean we all go too far sometimes, it is just that most of us realize it after a while and come back to earth. She got to enjoy her sycophants a little too much and never came home. Even I occasionally get depressed with society and go from Libertarian to Anarchist and start calling for a return of the barter system. "I'll trade you 3 horses for your McMansion..." Call it temporary insanity, the point is: I sober up in the morning.

BTW, 3 horses was a lowball offer. The seller thought that his sh!tbox was clearly worth 10 horses...

JG,

You have a good point. It's OK. BTW, I believe A.R. was probably a bad fxxk.

She did get around tho...

DinOR likes Susan McDonald. She's kinda cute.